Spencer’s theory of exogamy. 7. Conscious of these and other difficulties which surrounded Mr. McLennan’s explanation, Mr. Herbert Spencer suggested another theory. According to him[38] exogamy is the result of the constant inter-tribal war which prevailed in early societies. Women, like all other livestock, would be captured. A captured woman, besides her intrinsic value, has an extrinsic value: “like a native wife she serves as a slave; but, unlike a native wife, she also serves as a trophy.” Hence to marry a strange woman would be a test of valour, and non-possession of a foreign wife a sign of cowardice. The ambition, thus stimulated, would lead to the discontinuance of marriage within the tribe. This theory is, as has been shown by Mr. Starcke[39] and Dr. Westermarck,[40] open to much the same objections as that of Mr. McLennan. As before, even if it became customary to appropriate foreign women by force, we are a long way from the absolute prohibition against marrying women of the tribe. The desire of the savage for polygamy would impel him to marriage with any woman whether of the tribe or not. The women of a tribe habitually victorious in war would be condemned to enforced celibacy: a usage based on victory in war could not have extended to the vanquished: the powerful feeling against [[clxxviii]]marriage with near relations could not have arisen merely from the vain desire to possess a woman as a trophy: and lastly, we have no examples of a tribe which did or does marry only captive women, or, indeed, in which such marriages are preferred.
Lubbock’s theory of exogamy. 8. Sir John Lubbock’s[41] theory again depends on his theory of what he calls communal marriage, by which all the women of the group were at the general disposal of all the males. This, however, he thinks, would not be the case with women seized from a different tribe. This theory, so far as it is concerned with communal marriage and polyandry, is discussed elsewhere. It is enough here to say that the evidence for the existence of either among the primitive races of this part of India appears entirely insufficient, and it is difficult to understand, even if communal marriage prevailed, how women captured, as must have been the case, by the general act of members of the group, could have been protected from that form of outrage which would naturally have been their lot.
Starcke’s theory. 9. Mr. Starcke[42] in his account of exogamy attempts to draw a distinction between the license which would permit intercourse between kinsfolk and prohibit marriage between them:—“The clan, like the family, is a legal group, and the groups were kept together by legal bonds long [[clxxix]]before the ties of blood had any binding power. The same ideas which impelled a man to look for a wife outside his family, also impelled him to look for her outside the clan.” This depends upon the further assumption that early marriage was not simply a sexual relation, a fact which he can hardly be considered to have fully established.
Tylor’s theory of exogamy. 10. All these theories, it will be observed, base exogamy more or less on the abhorrence of incest. Dr. Tylor,[43] on the other hand, represents it as a means by which “a growing tribe is enabled to keep itself compact by constant unions between its spreading clans.” That exogamy may have been a valuable means of advancing political influence is true enough, but, as Dr. Westermarck objects, it does not account for the cases in which inter-tribal cohabitation was repressed by the most stringent penalties, even by death.[44]
Morgan’s theory of exogamy. 11. Next comes that advocated by Mr. Morgan[45] and others, that it arises from the recognition of the observed evils of intermarriage between near relations. This theory has been with some slight modifications accepted by Dr. Westermarck[46] and Mr. Risley.[47] Briefly put, it comes to this: No theory of exogamy can be satisfactorily [[clxxx]]based on any conscious recognition by the savage of the evils of interbreeding. Of all the instincts of primitive man the erotic are the most imperious and the least under control. To suppose that a man in this stage of culture calmly discusses the question whether his offspring from a woman of his group are likely to be weaklings is preposterous. But the adoption of marriage outside the group would, in the end, by the process of natural selection, give the group practising it a decided physical advantage. As Mr. Risley puts it:—“As a result of the survival of the fittest the crossed families would tend more and more to replace the pure families, and would at the same time tend to become more and more exogamic in habits, simply as the result of the cumulative hereditary strengthening of the original instinct. It would further appear that the element of sexual selection might also be brought into play, as an exogamous family or group would have a larger range of selection than an endogamous one, and would thus get better women, who again, in the course of the primitive struggle for wives, would be appropriated by the strongest and most warlike man.”
12. This theory, which bases exogamy on the unconscious result of natural selection, gradually weeding out those groups which persisted in the practice of endogamy, and replacing them by a healthier and more vigorous race, seems on the whole best to account for existing facts. It is, however, perhaps premature to suppose that in all cases the same end was reached by the same course. All through the myths of early India [[clxxxi]]nothing comes out more clearly than the instructive hatred of the Arya or white man for the Dasyu, or the man of the black skin. The balance of opinion now seems to be moving in the direction of assuming that the so-called Aryan invasion was much more moral than physical, that the attempt to discriminate between the ethnological strata in the population is practically impossible. The conversion may have been the work, not of armies of invaders moving down the valleys of the Ganges and Jumna, but of small bodies of missionaries who gradually effected a moral conquest and introduced their religion and law among a population with whom they ultimately to a large extent amalgamated. That some form of exogamy was an independent discovery made by the autochthones prior to their intercourse with the Aryans seems certain; but it is possible that the special form of prohibited degrees which was enforced among the higher races may have been to some extent the result partly of their isolation in small communities among a black-skinned population, and partly, as Dr. Tylor suggests, as a means of enhancing the political importance and establishing the influence of these groups. That this procuring of suitable brides from foreign groups was sometimes impossible is proved by the curious Buddhistic legend that the Sakyas became endogamous because they could get no wives of their own rank, and were in consequence known as “pigs” and “dogs” by their neighbours.[48] [[clxxxii]]
Exogamy and Totemism. 13. There is, however, another side to the discussion on the origin of exogamy which must not be neglected. In another place I have collected some of the evidence as to the existence of totemism in Northern India.[49]
The present survey has given indication of the existence of totemistic sections among at least twenty-four tribes, most of whom are of Dravidian origin.
Now we know that one of the ordinary incidents of totemism is that persons of the same totem may not marry or have sexual intercourse with each other,[50] and it is perhaps possible that, among the Dravidians at least, one basis of exogamy may have rested on their totemistic group organization. The indications of totemism are, however, too vague and uncertain, being mainly based on the fact that the names of many of their sections are taken from those of animals and plants, to make it possible at present to express a definite opinion on such an obscure subject. [[clxxxiii]]